15 MacBook Pro becomes unresponsive. Displays the beach ball

Customer Question

15" MacBook Pro becomes unresponsive. Displays the "beach ball" and fails to execute commands. How do I troubleshoot and find the issue?

Resetting the PRAM and NVRAM only had a temporary positive effect (see first response).

Attempt to restart in Safe Mode didn't work at all. Mac OS X failed to start, but instead, presented a gray screen with a flashing icon. The icon represented a "folder" marked with a question mark ("?").

Its probably a OS issue. Try the following solutions and let me know if that works or not...

Reset PRAM and NVRAM

Shut down your Mac

Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R.

Turn on the computer.

Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears and before the chime sound.

Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for three times.

Release the keys.

Restart in Safe mode Make sure that the computer is shut down. Press the power button. Immediately after you hear the startup tone, press and hold the Shift key. Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple and progress indicator. Let the Mac boot up...

Run Disk Utility in Single User ModeTurn your Mac off. Turn it back on and this time hold down the Command (Apple) key and the S keys at the same time. Then type the following command...

/sbin/fsck -fy (note the space between fsck and -fy)

If you can't run /sbin/fsk - fy then type only fsk - fy

Hit return and the disk utility should run and let it finish. When it finishes and there is no error, then type reboot and hit return. Let the Mac boot up.

OK ... work problems handled over the phone. I have the install disk. The label reads, "Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Install DVD, Version 10.6, 2Z691-6428-A" I anticipate we're going to try to start up from install disk, right? Is there an outside possibility that we'll be able to preserve the documents and files on the hard disk?

Yes, if you have another Mac and a Firewire cable, you can try to save your documents. If not, then you can reinstall your OS X which won't delete any of you files but it just replace the system files with new one.If you don't have another Mac and FW cable, then reinstall your OS X. So insert the disc and turn off your Mac. Turn it back on immediately hold down the C key on your Keyboard. Keep the key held down until it boots in to the disc. Let me know once you booted into disc.

Well, that's not what I expected. On the screen labelled, "Select the disk where you want to install Mac OS X", the only choice offered is the WD Passport (an external USB hard drive). It doesn't appear to be able to see the internal hard drive.I click the "Go Back" button to see the instruction, "to repair the disk, click utilities and select the disk utility."The Disk Utility says it's gathering disk information, but the progress "spinner" is NOT spinning and the machine appears to be stalled.

Following instructions in http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1661, my first false start because the FireWire target disk turned out to be Install Disk that I had left in the computer. The second attempt failed to bring the hard disk to the host (Mac Mini) computer. Can the internal hard disk simply be unreachable?

Your Mini can't recognize it. I think your internal hard drive is dying, but we're not sure. So your only choice is do a Erase and Install. But you'll lose your files if you do Erase and Install. Let me know what you think...

Well, there is the off chance that all the back ups on the external hard drive will have survived and I'll be able to recover them that wayl But to me it really sounds like I need to take a trip to the Apple store and get a new internal hard drive. I'll want to try that before I do an Erase and Install. Ashik, thanks for the help.

I will tell you that...the things you have to go through to be an Expert are quite rigorous.

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